Parasitic
by ghost-orchid
Summary: Pre Blade 2. Sequel to Roses Red as Blood. A medical experiment runs amok on an exclusive residential island, and only Reinhardt and a premed grad student can save the day. Chapter 6 added: Carolyn has a close call.
1. Arrival

**Disclaimer**: I own none of the characters from either _Blade 2 _or _Shivers/They Came From Within. _I am not making any money off this.

**Summary:** A medical experiment runs amok at an exclusive residential island off the coast of Georgia. Only a pre-med graduate student and a vampire can save the day.

**Author's Note**: This story is a sequel to _Roses Red as Blood, _a story I posted on but I think it can stand alone. It came about because I watched _Blade 2 _and _Shivers _(the David Cronenberg film, but I like the alternate title better because it's less generic) back to back. The situation in _Shivers _set up an interesting resonance with the vampire movie, & I thought I could create an interesting story by throwing a vampire into the situation and showing how he might react to another type of parasite. Plus, since Reinhardt was my favorite character in Blade 2, I thought he should have his own story. The ideas about what happened after Reinhardt killed his father were inspired by Raven Silvers and her story "The Bloodpack," which is posted on and which I highly recommend.

Parasitic

Chapter 1–Arrival

Peachbloom Island, Georgia, 1990

The wind over the deck of the ferry had the autumnal bite of November to it, and night would fall in less than an hour. Carolyn Robideaux stood at the rail of the last ferry to Peachbloom Island, cursing the chair of her dissertation committee, Kevin Corby. Being a graduate assistant to Dr. Corby meant pretty much the same thing as being a servant–deliver his papers, send out for his food, pick up his dry cleaning. So it wasn't much of a surprise when he suddenly decided she had to fetch and carry for him some more. "There's a Fedex package on the desk in my office that has some very important research papers in it. I need those papers today, Carolyn," he'd told her when he called her at home, just before she left for a blind date that her best friend in the department, Lia Dugan, had set up, insisting that Carolyn go because she didn't get out nearly enough. She supposed it was true. Men mostly weren't interested in her romantically, since she had too laser-like a focus on her work and fell somewhat short of the girly-girl ideal as far as makeup, hair, and clothes went. Presentable, she knew, but no knockout by any standards. To further her career she downplayed her natural assets: the waist-length sable hair, the perfect alabaster-pale skin, and the huge blue-green eyes that would make her a raving beauty if she took any pains with her appearance. But makeup and hairstyle had nothing to do with virology, so she ignored it. If Lia hadn't strong-armed her into it, she wouldn't even be as dressed up as she was. And, given everything she'd heard and experienced about Corby, she thought she should have changed clothes before making the trip, but there wasn't time. So here she stood, freezing her ass off in a short-sleeved red silk top and black leather miniskirt with ridiculous, impractical black stiletto heels. Her black leather jacket did provide some warmth but didn't stop the draft going up her skirt. _Damn fashion, _she said to herself. Corby'd better keep his hands off.

He was the reigning genius of microbiology at Colquhoun University and, since she was going for a doctorate in that field, he had to be her chair. And she had to keep him happy, which didn't include, in her book, fucking him. From the evidence of his numerous passes, he didn't agree with that, but if he took any punitive measures against her, she could have him up on sexual harassment charges, so they maintained an uneasy truce and she did his shitwork for him. She resented it, but her hands were tied. Oh, she knew he thought she'd wind up sleeping with him tonight, since this ferry was the last boat off the island until eight a.m. tomorrow, but if worse came to worst, she'd sleep on one of the couches in the luxurious lobby of Peachbloom Towers. Leave it to him to live an hour's boat ride from the nearest city, just for sheer annoyance value.

The ferry docked and several cars drove off. The cars of the rich: Jaguars, Rolls Royces, even a Lamborghini. Pretty sparse load for a Friday night, but she didn't pay that much attention. From what she'd heard, the island had some pretty kickass nightclubs, which interested her even less than fashion. Carolyn walked down the dock, tucking the Fedex package with Dr. Corby's all-important papers under her arm as she made her way down the broad marble path to the Towers. This was the first time she'd ever been to Peachbloom Island, all her information about it coming from newspapers and society columns. It had been designed as a retreat for the richest of the American rich, a self-contained community with expensive stores, restaurants, everything a person needed without having to leave home. Corby had substantial family money behind him and seemed reclusive by temperament; Carolyn couldn't imagine a better place for him, in fact. Most of the time he gave her the creeps, but she didn't have to like him, just put up with him.

Peachbloom Towers' atrium was several stories high, glass-walled, with three huge chandeliers sparkling with golden light in the growing dusk. The dark green leaves of hardy tropical foliage cast shadows over the cream-colored walls, while graceful Edwardian chairs and loveseats dotted the white marble floor, upholstered in tasteful pastels. The loveseats didn't look comfortable enough for sleeping, but if the good doctor pressed hard enough she could curl up on one. Carolyn was only five feet three. She looked around, but her committee chair was nowhere in sight. With an internal sigh she settled down in one of the needlepoint chairs to wait. The longer she kept from seeing him, the happier she would be.

OOOOOOO

Dieter Reinhardt dragged the Cigarette boat ashore and concealed it in a clump of trees underneath camouflage netting. At night it was almost invisible, and the inhabitants of this island didn't make a habit of beachcombing after dark. No, if they wanted to do that, they'd hire somebody to do it for them. His partner for this job and nominal superior, a vampire named Cromwell, stood off to the side, smoking a Gauloise. "No, don't bother. I can get it myself."

His sarcasm failed to register on the other man, who checked the luminous dial on his watch. "The jeweler's in apartment 1915. Mr. Golden's contact tells us he has heavy armament and isn't afraid to use it."

"Anything that could affect us?"

Cromwell shrugged. "Doubt it, but it pays to be careful. That's why you're my muscle on this job."

Reinhardt sighed and calculated the odds of killing Cromwell without suffering any retribution. They weren't in his favor. Fate was a bitch, no doubt. He had been in line to be the overlord of Vienna, but now he was reduced to serving as muscle for a vampire criminal. Hell, neither his boss nor his partner were even purebloods. He shook off the momentary surge of disgust and tried to get his mind back on the job. A jeweler named Lutz had a huge stash of South African diamonds hidden in his apartment, waiting for their purchaser to make the pickup tomorrow morning. Because he lived on this isolated, Godforsaken POS island, his boss had a window of opportunity to steal them and had sent Reinhardt and Cromwell to liberate the diamonds. Hey, it was a living.

When Stefan Reinhardt had killed his wife Liesl and died in the attempt to kill his son, the scandal had rocked the vampire world. Vampires simply did not kill each other in this sort of sordid, human way. In territorial disputes, yes, but not because of insanity. The council, in its infinite wisdom, had decided to sweep the scandal under the proverbial rug and, with it, the Reinhardts. Another noble family had been slotted to assume the overlordship of Vienna and Dieter had been banished from his home, the Reinhardt name in disgrace. Not that he minded so much, because the only thing that had ever held him there had been his mother. Now that she was gone, Vienna seethed with memories of the only person who had ever loved him. He was alone, and one place was as good as another.

The only good thing that had come out of the entire mess was that no more pressure to marry existed. Any noble female who would have been suitable for him by birth would refuse because of the scandal, and marrying beneath himself was inconceivable to him, so he was free to indulge himself with human females, his secret vice. He was still careful to keep this as private as possible, since vampires looked down on sex with humans as a minor perversion, but his appetite for them had increased with freedom. Every night he found human women with the thin white skin he was drawn to, the kind that colored easily with blood, and pleasured himself with them until his lust was satisfied. Reinhardt always left them alive. Killing them afterward, while customary in vampire circles, always seemed the height of ingratitude to him. His mama had taught him better manners than that. When he hunted, he took down men exclusively, not any of his lovely little females, warm and alive. They had other, better uses.

"Let's get moving. We've only got ten hours of darkness." Cromwell began walking across the beach toward Peachbloom Towers. Reinhardt recalled his last conversation with his mother then, when she urged him to go abroad to look for a mate, maybe in America. He bit back a bitter laugh, falling into step behind the half-blood vampire. A high-born woman was the last thing he wanted or needed. Sometimes he wondered what it was he stayed alive for and found no answer.

Both he and Cromwell were dressed casually in expensive jackets and slacks, the better to pass for residents of this exclusive community. Cromwell had that nondescript kind of face that could pull it off, but Reinhardt was a man observers would remember. Over six feet tall, he moved with a predator's lethal grace, and the dour expression on his face left no doubt that he was not a man to piss off. Add to that the shaved head and the mirrored sunglasses he affected, and that spelled trouble. His jacket was cut to hide the pistol in its shoulder holster, one of his customized weapons with a razor-sharp quarter-moon blade running from the underside of the gun's barrel to the base of the gunbutt. From all he'd been told, the jeweler was human, but he'd loaded the gun with silver bullets anyway. Who said Cromwell had told him everything? Maybe it was a simple smash-and-grab, maybe not. Caution had saved his life more than once.

He had to admit that Peachbloom Towers was beautiful, a place he could see Golden, the vampire mob boss he now worked for, living. In a way it reminded him of the Vienna compound, only much less secure. With a professional eye he appraised the lobby. Several security guards stood at their posts in the lobby, but they looked like rent-a-cops to him. They'd be of no use if anyone really determined to kill any of the complex's residents showed up. A red-haired woman at the information desk answered someone's questions, smiling pleasantly and gesturing down the corridor. Residents passed through the lobby on the way to the stores and the restaurants, but fewer than he'd expected. Maybe something good was on TV. A young woman sat in one of the chairs in the lobby, half-turned toward him, leafing through a copy of _Town & Country, _a package at her feet. Definitely human. Reinhardt spent a few moments admiring her. Gorgeous long legs in those spike-heeled shoes, exposed to mid-thigh by the miniskirt she wore. The bulky leather jacket she wore concealed her upper half from him, which he found something of a disappointment. Her long, straight hair fell forward, mostly veiling her face, but he could tell from those bare legs that she had glorious skin he'd love to lick while he fucked her.

"Stop staring at that bitch," Cromwell ordered. "We're here on business."

Irritated, he kept his eyes on her for a few seconds more, then turned to his partner. "Then let's get this shit on the road already. I'd like to be back in Atlanta before sunup."

"That won't be a problem as long as you do your part."

He snorted. "Then we won't have any problems. Let's go get those diamonds." The two men moved through the sluggish traffic in the lobby toward the bank of elevators at the end of the corridor. Reinhardt pushed fantasies of the dark-haired girl with the legs to the back of his mind. Time for action.


	2. Discovery

**Disclaimer: **I own none of the characters and/or situations from either _Blade 2 _or _Shivers/They Came from Within _and make no money from this.

**Summary: **Reinhardt and Carolyn find out that something weird's going on.

Parasitic

Chapter 2–Discovery

Carolyn lifted her head to look at the huge gold clock set into the wall and saw with surprise that an hour had passed. Corby had actually let her sit there in the lobby for an hour? _Way to put me in my place, doctor, _she thought. _Guess those papers weren't so important after all. _The more she thought about it, the surer she was that this had been some lame, twisted plot to get her trapped on the island for the night because he thought she'd have no choice but to sleep in his apartment and, presumably, with him. The things she had to put up with to get her doctorate. The only reason she tolerated this was because he really was a brilliant scholar in his field and she needed a recommendation letter from him for her post-grad job hunt. But if he'd decided to take more aggressive tactics with her, she might not have a choice other than to defend herself, one way or another. Did Corby know she had a black belt in karate? If he didn't, she had the feeling he'd know it before morning.

Dropping the glossy magazine onto the coffee table in front of her, she stood up and walked over to the information desk. The redhead working there wore a badge that said "Nicole" and wore the professional smile of someone in a service job. Still, Nicole almost certainly made more money directing people to the bathrooms in Peachbloom Towers than Carolyn did as a grad assistant. "I was wondering if you could tell me which apartment Dr. Kevin Corby lives in. I'm his assistant at the university and I've brought him some important papers."

Nicole tapped at the computer keyboard with perfectly manicured crimson nails. "Your name, please?"

"Carolyn Robideaux." She held up the Fedex package with Corby's name and university address on it. "He said it was important he have them tonight."

"Yes, your name is on the approved guests list. Dr. Corby's in 2503, one of our four penthouses. I'll ring him and tell him you're on your way up." She waited for almost a full minute with the phone to her ear, then replaced it with a puzzled look. "Dr. Corby doesn't answer. Are you sure he's at home?"

"He called me two hours ago from his apartment. I arrived on the last ferry, and if he'd left on it I would have noticed."

Nicole recovered her smile. "He's probably having dinner in one of our restaurants."

"If he isn't at his apartment, I'll start checking them." But Carolyn felt a little uneasy now. Why wouldn't he answer the phone? He knew she was bringing him his papers and must know when the last ferry arrived. Leaving her waiting for an hour in the lobby was out of character for him. Twenty minutes, yes, but not an hour. Maybe he'd just gotten absorbed in one of his experiments and lost track of time. He'd converted one of the penthouse's bedrooms into a home lab, so it seemed like a possibility. But could he ignore a minute's worth of a ringing phone? Maybe he'd turned the ringer off. So many maybes. Carolyn pushed aside her worries about Corby and made for the bank of elevators at the far end of the lobby, set in gleaming chrome and steel.

OOOOOOO

Cromwell and Reinhardt hit the security post together. Four of the rent-a-cops sat there, watching the huge bank of TV monitors fed by the numerous surveillance cameras in the complex. Peachbloom Towers actually had five separate security control rooms, but neither vampire concerned himself with any but this one. This room housed the monitors and camera controls for the residential section only. Its eyes watched the corridors, stairwells, and elevators the mega-rich walked in their daily life, the same route they'd have to use to reach their target. So these men, the ones who'd had the bad luck to draw the Friday two-to-midnight shift, would die in the next minute, their ears still ringing from the blast of the Semtex Reinhardt had used to blow the door.

The first guard sat numbly at his station, dazed as Cromwell seized him, jerked him to his feet, and ripped into his jugular with his fangs. Reinhardt hit the second guard with a solid right hard enough to knock him cold. The two remaining guards had time to begin regaining their wits, assisted by the fact that the first guard's back was toward them and thus they couldn't see him becoming a vampire's dinner.

Reinhardt embraced the iciness battle evoked in him, the movements of fighting transforming into something akin to dance. An isolated part of his mind registered contempt for his half-blood partner, who elected to feed before the battle was even decided, leaving him to deal with the rest of their opposition. He grabbed the third guard and hurled him into the wall, exploding the bank of monitor screens he struck into a shower of glass and sparks. The smell of burning human meat filled the room, along with screams that diminished in intensity by the second. When the last guard saw this, he drew his sidearm and managed to fire one shot at Reinhardt before the big vampire reached out and snapped his forearm. The bullet had fired true; lodged in Reinhardt's chest just below his left nipple, it would have killed any human attacker. Just the guard's bad luck that he wasn't one. Anger, along with a growing hunger, pierced his inner chill, and he hissed, baring his elongated canines. The guard screamed and tried to struggle free, but he was no match for a hungry vampire.

The hot blood, sharp with adrenalin, filled his mouth when he bit into the jugular. Sweet, sweet, the burn of life...Even though he'd fed on a homeless crack addict before meeting Cromwell and the buzz still lingered in his veins, he needed to feed again to heal the injury he'd sustained. But what was Cromwell's excuse? No way had he been so hungry he couldn't wait until after the control room had been secured. He might not have gotten shot if the other man had been tending to his business instead of having dinner. When Reinhardt raised his face from the now-dead guard's neck, the other vampire had dropped the corpse he'd finished draining and moved to the guard who'd been knocked unconscious earlier, his bloodlust still not sated. Now that was gluttony in Reinhardt's book. Nobody really needed two in less than ten minutes unless they were _badly _injured. For a moment their eyes locked. "You want this one?" Cromwell asked.

He shook his head. "Seems like you're a lot hungrier than I am." _Too hungry to take care of business, _he added in his mind.

"What can I say? Fighting makes me thirsty."

"Watching sounds more like it. I didn't see you doing any actual fighting."

"I don't like your tone." But his voice held no heat, all his attention focused on the downed human.

"As if I care what you like. I'd like to do this job and get back to New York in the next couple of days." The guard moaned, beginning to awaken, and Reinhardt motioned at him. "Eat up. I'll take out their communications." Moving toward the phone line room, he heard the slurping sounds as Cromwell indulged his thirst.

OOOOOOO

Carolyn stepped into an almost-empty car and pushed the button for the top floor. The button for 19 was also lit. When the doors closed and the elevator ascended, she felt only the slightest jolt. _Life among the rich folk, _she observed.

The elevator's only other passenger was an elegant woman who looked to be in her early fifties, although with the plastic surgery she could afford, there was no way to be sure. She wore a navy suit Carolyn felt sure had to be Chanel and black lizard pumps. Her entire outfit cost more than a year's worth of her student loans. When the woman noticed Carolyn watching her, she smiled. "First visit to Peachbloom?"

She nodded. "I have to deliver some papers to one of my professors." No chance of being a resident, of course. Her shoes were too cheap and her purse wasn't designer. The most expensive piece was the red silk blouse, and Carolyn had found that on sale at a department store for $30. Among other students she never felt her own poverty because everyone shared the same boat, eating ramen noodles and microwave burritos and living with roommates in spaces designed only for one. She doubted if this rich lady had ever even heard of ramen noodles.

"That's Dr. Corby, then?" The woman's face darkened. "Do you know you're stranded on the island for tonight?"

A cynical smile crossed her lips. "Yes. He didn't mention any accommodations, so I imagine I'll be sleeping on a loveseat in the lobby."

"No need for that. I've heard quite a lot about Dr. Corby." The woman held out her hand. "I'm Sara Porteous. I live in 1911. If you have any difficulties with your professor, just come downstairs to my apartment and you can sleep on the sofa. I've seen too many crying girls in the elevator on too many mornings."

"Thank you, ma'am." Carolyn revised her opinion of the older woman upwards and smiled. "I might just do that."

Mrs. Porteous got out on the nineteenth floor and she rode up to the penthouse floor alone. She really hoped Dr. Corby didn't have anything aggressive planned, like, say, answering his front door naked with a hard-on, but she believed in planning for everything.

The thick beige carpeting muffled her footsteps as she walked down the hallway, the white walls suggesting the sheen of metal. Funny; the place seemed pretty empty for a building that was rented to full capacity. But she shrugged off the worries and rang the doorbell. A few moments passed, and he did not open the door. She rang again, and again nothing happened. The third time she kept her finger on the bell. Inside the apartment it jingled in a steady, annoying melody guaranteed to ache like a bad tooth if it continued. After two full minutes she gave it up as useless. What kind of game was he playing? On an impulse she tested the knob and it gave easily under her hand. Jesus, the naked hard-on scenario seemed more likely by the second.

The door swung open and she stuck her head in for a quick, cautious look. Nothing. The living room was starkly decorated in white and black with lots of chrome and sharp edges, a perfect frame for the view from the terrace of the hillside rolling away into the Atlantic Ocean. It still looked impressive even in the darkness as she stood there. Carolyn could only imagine its magnificence in daylight. Moving further into the apartment, she put the Fedex package down by the door and closed it quietly behind her. The lights had been on when she entered. What did that mean?

She checked the kitchen to her right and turned up nothing. Alarm bells had been going off in her head for quite a while. Carolyn wasn't sure where the danger was–maybe Corby intended to pull some unsavory sexual shit with her, maybe even get violent–but she knew something bad was going down. A hallway led off the living room and she saw three doors. One of them was definitely the bathroom and two were bedrooms. Corby had told her he used one of the bedrooms as a home lab. But maybe nothing was going on, maybe he'd just gotten caught up in an experiment. Enough to ignore two minutes' worth of a ringing doorbell? It didn't sound right. "Dr. Corby?" she called out. "It's Carolyn Robideaux. I have those papers you wanted."

Only silence answered.

"Dr. Corby? Are you all right?" Without conscious awareness of it, she had assumed a fighting stance as she made her way toward the first door. If the naked scenario played out, he would get the ass-kicking of his life, that was for sure. Her hand itched for a sword, a gun, any weapon she could use. But her body would have to suffice. She moved into the hallway.

OOOOOOO

When Reinhardt returned, Cromwell had taken one of the guard's guns and was tucking it into the waistband of his pants. Good idea, even if he had been the one who came up with it. In case some threat existed that he'd need the silver for, he wanted to save that ammo. The guards all carried .38 Chief's Specials, not spectacular like his custom pistol, but serviceable. He snagged one off the last guard he'd killed and asked, "So when do we move?"

"Right now. No one should discover any of these humans until someone comes to relieve them, which would be at eleven-thirty at the earliest. By then we'll be long gone."

Reinhardt nodded and the two vampires left the guard post. "How are you planning on getting into the jeweler's apartment?" Golden and Cromwell saw no need to fill him in on things like that. He was just muscle, even if an air of danger still clung to him. Not a vampire alive was unfamiliar with his status as his father's murderer, something that had not happened in pureblood circles in undead memory. He rather enjoyed that notoriety because it kept others at arm's length. But it would still be nice to be something other than a thug. Even though he hadn't really wanted to be the overlord of Vienna, he would have liked telling people what to do better than being told.

"He's expecting us. I'm posing as a potential buyer from England, and you're my bodyguard."

"Seems a little careless, with all those diamonds at his place."

Cromwell shrugged. "He probably trusts too much to his weapons."

"His mistake." The elevator opened, and they rode up to the nineteenth floor. Something about the emptiness of Peachbloom Towers nagged at Reinhardt. All his internal danger bells were ringing, but he couldn't pinpoint the problem. Perhaps there was something else that his vampire senses picked up, but just barely? And that input triggered his worry? He almost mentioned his concern to Cromwell, but then he remembered who he was dealing with.

Lutz, the jeweler, took quite a while to open the door. Cromwell had been ringing the doorbell, then pounding with his fist. _Danger, danger, _whispered in Reinhardt's brain, the same song he'd heard when he found his father in the ballroom with that bloodied sword, sipping blood from a snifter as if he didn't have a care in the world. Then it had saved him. His hand found the butt of the .38 Special in the pocket of his jacket. Had that really been almost seventy years ago? The loss of his mother still ached. But memory fell away when the jeweler opened the door.

For one thing, he was naked. For another, a girl who looked young enough to be his granddaughter was equally naked and draped all over him. And for yet another, her hand had a firm grip on the man's privates, caressing the rampant hard-on that pointed up at the ceiling. The girl's dark brown eyes stared at both of them as she toyed with the old man's dick. "Is this how you normally begin a business meeting?" Cromwell snapped as he shouldered past the naked pair.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. This situation was fucking weird. The last thing they needed to do was walk into that apartment without the faintest idea what was waiting. Reinhardt wondered again why the half-blood was in charge. Lutz, other than his state of undress and the little Siamese twin whose hand was fused to his hard-on, looked normal. Just a sixtyish guy with a paunch and thinning hair, nervous eyes and a greed that spelled the end for him, if he only knew it. He'd seen pictures of the target before they left New York, but his eyes weren't nervous now. Instead they were filled with a kind of hunger he'd seen only in other vampires. As he moved closer to the jeweler, he reached out with his senses. Something off in their scents–lust, but to a degree he'd never encountered before, and something else, an alien smell he couldn't identify, but not human or vampire. Dangerous, though. He kept his hand on the gun. Whatever was wrong would reveal itself soon.

"What's your girlfriend's name?" he asked Lutz.

The man giggled, drool dripping out of one corner of his mouth, while the girl kept her hand moving on him. Jesus, she was jerking the guy off right in front of two total strangers. And she didn't seem concerned with them seeing her naked. She wasn't a bad-looking chick, with a short cap of blonde hair that matched the patch below and the eyes that looked like chocolate. Nice tits, too. But those eyes were just too damn weird. His cock resolved to stay limp. "That was a simple question, Mr. Lutz. Why won't you answer it?"

He giggled again, but the girl replied in a voice that sounded rusty, as if she hadn't spoken in years. "Come in. Please, come in." She released her grip on Lutz and began moving toward him. "You'll like it, I promise." Her eyes bored into his. "Freedom...you need that. We all need that."

He registered the moment she stepped too close and put his hand in the middle of her chest, shoving her hard toward the naked man, who made no move to catch her. Both of them tumbled through the door of his apartment, which Cromwell had already begun searching for the diamonds. Reinhardt kicked the door closed and drew the revolver from his pocket. "You need these weirdos any more? 'Cause I'd like to kill them right now. They're creeping me out."

But the couple wasn't listening. When they'd fallen to the floor, instead of trying to get back up or reacting to what he'd just said, the man had rolled onto his back and the girl had climbed on top of him, sliding herself down onto his hard dick and riding him like a pony. They paid no attention to Reinhardt or to Cromwell, who made a noise of satisfaction from the other room. "Got the diamonds. You can kill them anytime you want." Then he stepped back into the living room and got a good look at the show. "Jesus, Reinhardt, what's going on here?"

"You a virgin, man? I guess they decided to fuck. Nothing I could do about it."

The half-blood stood there, staring, in shock. Reinhardt hid a smile. This was so unexpected Cromwell had no idea what to do. The joined pair on the floor seemed to be having quite a good time, unconcerned with the fact that two strange men had forced their way into his apartment and were in the process of robbing him. All that mattered to them was the burning in their flesh. In their present condition they were no threat, but somehow Reinhardt sensed danger even more intense than before. "Are you both crazy? We're going to kill you," Cromwell shouted at them.

Lutz's only response was to grab the girl by the hips and come with a wail before sagging back to the carpet. The girl cried out, disappointed, and climbed off her lover. At least it gave Reinhardt a clear line of fire. He shot the jeweler directly in the heart, the slug from the .38 punching an adequate hole in his chest. When he turned toward the girl, Cromwell held up his hand. His fangs had elongated, and the older vampire sighed. _Thinking with your thirst will get you killed_, he thought. "We don't need to be hasty. Maybe this one doesn't have to die."

"Whatever. I'll be outside while you take care of things." Personally, he wouldn't have shaken hands with that crazy-ass bitch, much less put his mouth on her to drain her, but half-bloods were different, greedier. And stupider. What was going on?

"Give me some time." The half-blood smiled as he took the nameless blonde into the bedroom and closed the door.

"Your funeral," said Reinhardt before he left the apartment, the lock clicking as the door closed. He never saw the movement in the dead jeweler's mouth, a motion that could almost be the tip of his tongue moving to lick his lips. Almost, that is, if one didn't look too closely.

OOOOOOO

Carolyn twisted the knob of the first door on her right and opened the door. Corby's bedroom, and what a room it was. He was into bondage, judging from the suspension gear hanging over the bed and the sturdy black-leather-covered board secured to the wall with two chrome loops suitable for securing chain or handcuffs. On further inspection, the bed had been custom-designed with leather restraints at the head and footboards and was made up in black rubber sheets. "And you sleep here?" she whispered to herself in amazement. "Looks more like a rec room." Numerous gadgets and devices that she didn't recognize littered the dresser and the floor; a rack of whips was mounted on one wall, and the ceiling was mirrored. A sheaf of photographs rested on the vanity. She flipped through them quickly, recognizing students and a couple of the female professors. Damn. Corby was a busy kind of guy.

Next she checked the room across the hall, which proved to be the bathroom. She found the first signs of trouble there. Several scalpels had been hurled carelessly into the sink, chipping the porcelain, and trails of blood decorated the white. Carolyn turned to examine the shower and found it had been used recently. His towels were still wet. Smears of blood marred them, while a partial handprint stained the glass door. What had gone on? Some extracurricular activities got out of hand? God, had he actually killed somebody? Adrenalin sent tingles throughout her as she prepared to check the last room.

Nothing she had imagined could have prepared her for what she saw. The spare bedroom served as an improvised operating room, it seemed. A naked woman lay on top of a table, cut open, her insides a mass of blood and organs spilling out. Her hair seemed to have been blonde, but blood had dyed it red. One arm hung off the side of the table, fingers curled in toward the palm. The nails were long and painted green. She had to fight the urge to vomit as she moved toward the bloody tableau. Murder–God, how had this happened? Who was this woman? When had Corby snapped? Carolyn felt as though she'd stepped sideways into some alternate reality, but the smell of blood choked her and brought her back to her senses. She had to get out of here. Her professor had gone insane and she could be his next victim. Tabloids printed stories about girls just like her every day. Trying to control her breathing, she moved backwards into the hallway, only to be brought up short by a body behind her. A man's hands clamped onto her upper arms.

"So you're finally here," said Dr. Corby.


	3. Experiment

**Disclaimer: **I do not own anything from either _Blade 2 _or _Shivers/They Came From Within._

**Summary: **Things go badly for Cromwell, while Carolyn realizes the scope of the problem. Reinhardt tries to stay alive.

Parasitic

Chapter 3–Experiment

Carolyn screamed and aimed a swift back kick at his groin. The only thought she had was to escape and call the police. His hands loosened on her arms with the impact of her kick as she wrenched herself free. As she turned toward him she launched a roundhouse kick at knee level, which took his feet out from under him. He hit the floor hard and sprawled across the hallway, blocking her retreat. Now, as she assessed the level of threat Dr. Corby represented, she decided to find our exactly what was going on.

He was bare-chested, wearing gray sweat pants with no shoes, a huge departure from his normal business-suited look. No blood marred his skin or hair, but then he had showered before going out. No need to panic the other tenants while he went trolling for victims. Carolyn shuddered with the memory of what he'd left of the blonde girl, then controlled herself. "I saw what you did, Dr. Corby."

"I thought as much, seeing as you were leaving the room when I came in." Corby moved to sit up, but Carolyn stopped him

"You can scoot backward and sit against the wall if you want. You try to attack me, or even stand up, and I'll knock you flat on your ass. Again. Is that clear?"

"Crystal." His contempt dripped from the word. "It isn't what you think."

"I _think _I've been the graduate assistant to Jack the Ripper for the last year." She cast a look toward his living room, wondering how she could restrain him so she could make the call to the police and this whole thing would be out of her hands.

"That's why you'll never be a great scientist, Carolyn. You see only the obvious and don't bother looking below the surface for answers. You have no vision, no imagination." Corby pulled his knees up and rested his arms on them. "That girl in there was my first step to a new evolution for the human race, the first person to attain a truly pure state."

"If that's what you call death." How had she not seen he was insane instead of just a womanizing jerk? Or had he just been good at wearing a mask?

Corby gestured, impatient. "Killing her wasn't the experiment. I wanted to see whether the creatures could be surgically removed without injuring the test subject."

Her mind reeled. "Creatures? What kind of creatures?" The sensible side of her told her that they were a figment of his diseased mind, but the curious part of her, the part that had compelled her to become a scientist, let him continue.

"Symbiotic organisms that can raise us from the morass we're trapped in. They remove our compulsive need to worry, to overthink, to analyze." His eyes glowed with a zealot's passion. "How much unhappiness have these traits caused the human race? When these creatures live inside us, we can regain the pure state we once enjoyed as babies–the burden of excessive thought removed, replaced by the free flow of emotion, unafraid and unashamed. Adam and Eve before the Fall."

Carolyn once again had that feeling, as if she'd slipped through a dimensional crack into some alternate reality. "Where did you get the idea to start implanting these things in people?" At least that poor girl had been the only person he killed in his madness, the first of his new breed of humans. Who would have thought a scientist could dislike and distrust thought so much? And why was she even still talking to him?

"An old professor of mine in Montreal performed the same experiment under similar conditions back in 1975. A residential island with traffic limited for the night–Peachbloom was the only place I could find that replicated the conditions closely enough for duplication of the experiment. I had to gather reliable data, of course."

"Of course." What else could she say?

"He died during the experiment, so I imagine that when the scientific community opens its eyes to the brilliance of his ideas, the creatures will be named after him. After all, he has revolutionized the field of biology."

She refrained from pointing out that, if his brave new world came about, no more scientific community would exist. Corby had lost any contact with reality he'd ever had, and she was tired of listening to him. "Please come into the bedroom, Dr. Corby."

He lifted his head, surprise and a flicker of hope in his eyes. "So you had closer contact with the body than I thought, Carolyn. You held out longer than I thought you would, but you always were a stubborn little bitch. See how much better it is this way? Just let the feeling flow."

"Cut the shit about these imaginary parasites. You know I believe in them like I believe in the Easter bunny, and your blood's going to flow if you don't do what I say. I need to restrain you until the police get here, and your little playroom seems to be just the place. On your feet, doctor."

A smile slashed across his face as he rose to his feet and began the walk into the bedroom. "I can't wait until they take you, Carolyn. You'll be begging me to fuck you any way I can think of, but I won't. At least not for a while. You need to be punished a little."

She waited until he stepped past her, then used her arm to pinch both his carotid arteries simultaneously. Corby lost consciousness in less than five seconds. Maybe it was premature, but she couldn't stand listening to him talk anymore. At least now he was quiet. She kicked her stiletto heels off to drag him over to the bed and fasten the leather restraints around his wrists and ankles. If she was right about him, he wouldn't have any way of getting free once he came to. Carolyn thought he savored total control and so wouldn't give a partner the chance to get free if she changed her mind. By this time color had started returning to his face and he made a moaning sound, so she hurried out to the living room to make the call.

Corby's phone emitted nothing at all–no static, no dial tone, no nothing. Just a piece of molded plastic that sat on his end table. "Shit," she muttered. Phone service on any island was problematic, but with all the rich folk living here, she thought it would be better. No storms to knock out the lines–could Dr. Corby have had anything to do with this? He'd left his apartment for some reason. Maybe it was to disable communication with the mainland so he could go on a real killing spree with multiple victims. "Out of luck there, doctor." The sound of her own voice unsettled her a little in the silence. Only one thing to do now, and that was go downstairs and notify the management of Peachbloom Towers that they had a maniac to deal with. They must have a shortwave radio on the island somewhere for just such an occasion, and more than one if they were smart. Corby had recovered enough to shout obscenities at her by the time she left the apartment.

OOOOOOO

Cromwell kept the blonde girl's hands trapped in one of his as he dragged her across the bedroom and tossed her onto the bed, falling on top of her to pin her down and stop her struggling. Since he'd been turned twenty-five years ago by Golden's former right-hand man, he'd forced more than his fair share of women, so this one was nothing special to him. Not the first, wouldn't be the last. But this one wasn't fighting him at all. What he'd taken for struggling was really her squirming against him in encouragement. For a heartbeat he wondered why she was behaving this way with the man who'd ordered her jeweler boyfriend killed by that Neanderthal Reinhardt, who'd only put her death on hold until after he raped her. For that matter, why had she and Lutz put on that show in the living room? The human part of him, the part that still feared death, tried to warn him of danger, but then she lurched against him, her pink mouth opening and her tongue lapping at her blunt white teeth, and the vampire bloodlust took him. He reached down, unzipped his pants, and drove himself into her. Damn, but it was good, hot and tight and wet. The blonde girl began thrusting her hips up to meet his, making animal squeals of delight, and he lost himself in the sex, pumping into her like a machine. Maybe he would turn her, because damned if a performance like this didn't deserve some kind of reward. It had been a long time since he'd had a regular woman instead of the familiars Golden passed around like party favors.

Cromwell tried to turn her head to the side, to bare her neck so he could feed, but she kept trying to kiss him. Affection was nothing he encouraged during sex, so he put one hand on the side of her face and shoved hard until the vein and artery were exposed to him. The pulse pounded like a trapped animal, making the lust and hunger blend into one unstoppable drive. With one powerful strike he pierced the skin and began drinking of her. Odd, her blood tasted odd. Some kind of bizarre flavor to it he had never encountered. Only then did he bother to reach out with his senses and detect the alien scent Reinhardt had noticed earlier. Of course he was a vampire and no human disease could infect him, since he had passed that level of physical weakness when he turned, but a sense of caution prompted him to lift his mouth from her and turn her face back toward him.

Feral was the only word he knew to describe her eyes, with a knowing, gleeful edge that at long last awakened fear in him. A laugh bubbled from her lips as he tried to pull himself free of her body. Her interior muscles gripped him like a vise. How was that possible? He was a vampire, stronger than she was, but she held him prisoner. The taste of her blood burned his mouth and throat, painful, but not as much as the sensation of being imprisoned within her body. And something was happening there, to him. His cock throbbed and he had the distinct, very uncomfortable feeling of being opened, something flowing into him from her, some unknown thing entering, moving inside his cock. As he drew breath to scream for help, before the burning penetrated his brain and stole his fear, his language, everything other than the need to fuck, to come, to spread this gift to others, he heard her say, "Free, now."

The scream died in his throat.

OOOOOOO

Reinhardt walked back toward Lutz's apartment, buttoning his shirt. He'd had to work quickly to dig out the bullet before his skin grew over it. Feeding on the guard had accelerated his healing process, and the wound had been nearly closed when he found the utility closet and removed the .38 slug with the Bowie knife he carried. It went into a pocket of his jacket as a souvenir. Once again he noticed the worrisome emptiness of Peachbloom Towers. He hoped Cromwell had finished with that weird blonde girl so they could haul ass back to New York before anything else happened. His mind went back to their behavior, that scent he detected from them. Some illness, maybe? It would serve Cromwell right if he got some new strain of gonorrhea from that chick. Let him explain that to Golden. The thought put a smile on his face that stayed there until he reached the door.

It had locked automatically behind him, so he exerted just a little of his strength and broke the lock. When he stepped into the apartment, the first thing he registered was the briefcase full of diamonds that Cromwell had found in the bedroom. It sat where he had dropped it when he'd gotten a load of Lutz and the blond chick fucking. Now that seemed out of character for him. Once he got the bloodlust out of his system, he'd insist on keeping them in his possession until he handed them over to Golden. Reinhardt picked up the briefcase and stepped over to the door, ready to knock and ask Cromwell if he was done, but something else caught his eye then. Lutz's mouth gaped open, which he noticed because the jeweler's mouth had been closed when he died, and a shiny, beige-tinted trail of slime led over his face and across the carpet to the wall, where it moved into one of the heating vents in the floor. He knelt beside the jeweler and probed at the dead man's mouth with the barrel of the .38 Special. Blood in there, and slime, lots of it, but nothing else. Not now, anyway. He stood there, trying to come up with a logical explanation for this and not finding one. How he hated problems he couldn't solve with a bullet. "Cromwell!" he yelled. "Get finished with that slut and let's go! Something bad's going on here."

He heard his partner laugh from behind the closed bedroom door. The sound raised the hairs on his arms. It was the same sort of laughter he'd heard from the jeweler. Female giggles joined Cromwell's, then the door opened. The blonde preceded his partner out the door, still naked but with blood trailing from her neck to flow across her upper chest and drip off her nipple. How was she still standing after Cromwell had fed on her? Had he turned her? Cromwell was equally naked behind her and had a look on his face that Reinhardt recognized and didn't like. Lutz had had that same look on his face. Before he died, of course. The two of them started toward him, and instinctively he grabbed for the briefcase and leveled his gun. "Get your clothes on, man. We've got to get out of here. There's some kind of trouble."

The other vampire laughed, exposing those elongated canines. He put a hand behind the blonde's neck and lapped at her blood, not taking his eyes off Reinhardt. She drew her breath in with a sensual hiss, also keeping her gaze on him. "Free," she murmured.

"Golden wants those diamonds off the island tonight. You want me to explain to him that you fucked up because you were thinking with your dick? Wouldn't look good for his right hand to get that kind of a rep, would it?"

Cromwell's fingers wandered down to the juncture of the woman's thighs and began moving. She moaned with pleasure, her eyelids dropping shut. "Need," he said. "A gift. You."

Reinhardt didn't have a clue what he was talking about. "Have you lost your mind? Kill her and let's get out of here."

"No," the blonde told him. "We want you." Then she lunged at him, moving quicker than her speech and behavior had led him to think she could. But it didn't matter much, because he was quicker. The bullet took her in the forehead and knocked her back, but didn't exit the skull. Cromwell made no move to catch her, watching Reinhardt with hungry eyes as the vampire leaned down to press his fingertips against the artery in her throat. He felt no beat.

"Did you turn her?" he asked. He received no answer but a whisper of movement. As he'd spoken, Cromwell made his own lunge. He knocked the bigger vampire off his feet and tried to pin him to the floor with his body. Waves of lust rolled off him as he rubbed himself against Reinhardt, moaning at the feeling of the linen slacks against his stiffness, trying to bare the other man's neck for a bite.

This made the scene with the girl and Lutz look wholesome as Mom's homemade apple pie. He knew for sure that Cromwell was straight, so what had happened in the past fifteen minutes to change that? Besides, gay guys didn't usually go for him. He wasn't pretty enough. He used his heightened senses and–yeah, there it was. The alien scent Lutz and the nameless blonde had exuded now came from his former partner. Some kind of infection, contagious disease? Well, whatever it was, vampires weren't immune. He wasn't sure if it could spread with a bite, but he wasn't going to take the chance. Swinging the briefcase, he nailed Cromwell in the side of the head, knocking him onto the floor. Reinhardt scrambled to his feet, wishing his fingers on the gun didn't have that tiny tremble of nerves. But, hey, this was enough to unsettle anyone.

Cromwell rushed at him and he fired, remembering too late that he held the guard's .38, not his knife-gun with the silver bullets. The two shots hit him dead center in the chest, and the vampire changed course, passing Reinhardt and running out the door. Cursing, he dropped the .38 and drew his own gun from the shoulder holster. By the time he entered the corridor, the other man was nowhere in sight. "The perfect conclusion to a perfect job," he said bitterly to the empty hallway as he closed the apartment door behind him and made for the stairs. He had to stop Cromwell before the other man took the boat and left him stranded on the island. The odds of killing Golden's right-hand man without dying himself now seemed a whole lot better.

OOOOOOO

The lobby of Peachbloom Towers was completely deserted when Carolyn stepped out of the elevator. She was too rattled by what she'd seen and heard in Corby's penthouse to wonder why. Nicole still remained behind the information desk, but now she sat in a chair, only the top of her red head visible. Relief swept through her. She hurried toward the information desk, her bare feet soundless on the marble floor. How was she going to say this without sounding crazy? She hoped the woman wouldn't just dismiss her as a loon and refuse to call her boss. "Nicole, you have to help me. There's a serious situation with Dr. Corby in the penthouse, and you have to call the police right now. The phone's out in his apartment. Do you know if all the phones on the island are out?"

Nicole's fingers idly caressed the strand of pearls around her neck, and her thighs rasped in their nylon casings as she uncrossed her legs to stand up. "Take it easy. What are you talking about?"

"Look, something bad's happened with Dr. Corby and a woman is dead. He murdered her. I managed to restrain him afterward. The body's up in his penthouse and we have to call the police now. Is your phone working?"

She raised the phone to her ear and shook her head. "Nothing."

"Is there a shortwave radio on the island that we can use to call the Coast Guard? They can notify the cops and have a launch here in an hour or so."

"Yes, we keep a shortwave nearby in case of emergency. The phone service here isn't too reliable, as I'm sure you've noticed. Come with me, please." Nicole tried to take Carolyn's hand, but she pulled away.

"Why are the phones out? There hasn't been any storm." The redhead's behavior was way off. Way too calm. She should be freaking out, but she was tranquil as the ocean on a still day. And why hadn't she tried to notify her bosses of this potential scandal? Carolyn knew they'd want to do damage control as soon as possible, spin this to make Peachbloom Island look good despite the dead body and the crazy doctor. But Nicole was ignoring this, instead taking her arm and urging her toward a door at the end of the corridor. "Where are we going?"

"You said you wanted the shortwave radio to call the Coast Guard. It's in this room." The woman's voice began to sound urgent, and her grip tightened on Carolyn's arm. "We can help you. Everything will be all right." Drool appeared in one corner of her mouth, then began to form a trail through her perfect makeup as she led Carolyn toward the closed door.


	4. Meeting

**Disclaimer: **I do not own any characters and/or situations from either _Blade 2 _or _Shivers/They Came from Within._

**Summary: **Carolyn gets first-hand experience of the infected, while Reinhardt winds up in a dangerous situation.

Parasitic

Chapter 4–Meeting

Reinhardt crashed through the door at the bottom of the stairwell and emerged in the lobby. He scanned the place–nobody home. Cromwell had given him the slip somehow. And now that he had a chance to think about it, standing there staring at the empty lobby, he realized that his partner wasn't going to strand him on the island after all. Reinhardt was the one who had the diamonds, so unless the other vampire wanted Golden hunting him down and killing him, he couldn't leave the island without getting them back.

But he might be giving Cromwell too much credit; the other people he'd seen who'd been infected with this disease or whatever it was, Lutz and the blonde chick, hadn't been what he'd call rational. Just to be on the safe side, Reinhardt headed outside for the dock to disable the other boats on the island. He had the keys to their Cigarette boat, and he knew Cromwell didn't have the mechanical know-how to hotwire it. Whatever was happening on Peachbloom Island had nothing to do with him, and he didn't want the annoyance of anyone chasing him when he decided to leave.

_You could do that right now, _his mind whispered. _You've got the diamonds and the boat. Fuck Cromwell. Let him explain to Golden why he fell down on the job. _But if he did that, he ran the risk of his partner getting caught due to his recent craziness and ratting out both him and Golden, so he knew he either had to drag Cromwell back to New York or kill him here. Of the two options, he preferred the latter. Golden might give him a hard time about it, but the diamonds ought to sweeten his disposition. Besides, if they didn't, he'd just leave. He had no attachments in New York, or anywhere for that matter. Safety lay in isolation.

Shaking off that moment of reflection, Reinhardt moved toward the boat dock, quick and silent, one with the darkness.

OOOOOOO

Nicole's heels rang out on the marble floor as she half-dragged Carolyn into the hallway. The woman's perfect nails bit into the soft flesh on the underside of her arm. "Take it easy," she said, trying to free herself from the painful grip. "I can walk on my own."

"In a bit. We want to help you. Help." When she turned her head toward Nicole, she saw drops of blood clinging to her lips, darker than the pale pink of her lipstick.

"Wait a minute. You're bleeding. Are you hurt?" The redhead paid no attention, other than to tighten her grip. They reached the door before Carolyn dug her heels in and stopped. In the few seconds since she'd noticed the bleeding, it had become a thin brook flowing onto her perfectly ironed white blouse. "Hold it, hold it! You need medical attention and all you're worried about is the shortwave? Dr. Corby's upstairs, restrained. It can wait a few minutes."

Her tongue came out and swept away the blood. "I bit my lip. It's nothing. The shortwave is in here." Nicole's voice took on a note of frenzy that seemed inappropriate for the smooth unruffled professional she had been earlier. Something felt wrong, the way something had felt wrong outside Dr. Corby's apartment. Nicole reached past her to grab the handle of the closed door. "In here. Right in here," she muttered as it opened. Blackness beyond–the lights were out.

Nicole shoved Carolyn toward the door, but she twisted and used the other woman's grip on her arm to swing her into the room first. Her high heels gave her no purchase on the floor, while Carolyn's feet were bare. If anything...unpleasant awaited, Nicole would encounter it before she did. The lights came on then, blinding, and time slowed way down as Carolyn processed what she was seeing.

At least half a dozen people, maybe more, had been hidden inside what looked like the employee break room. She didn't see a shortwave radio anywhere. Two couches sagged against the wall, their dingy teal pointing up the dull beige paint job on the walls, and a coffee maker sat at the end of one of the couches. The coffeepot itself lay in shards on the floor, hot coffee forming a lake on the linoleum. No windows here to look outside, the only thing breaking up the monotony was a framed poster of the motivational variety that companies liked, a picture of a river breaking against rocks with the caption, "Success means bypassing resistance." Discarded clothing had been scattered about the room, A white satin bra lay at the edge of the spilled coffee, soaking up the liquid. The people who had hidden in the darkness were all partially or completely naked, their mouths stained with blood. As Nicole tumbled through the door, the restraint they had imposed on themselves evaporated and the room filled with their grunts and lunatic giggles as they fell on her.

Carolyn's brain absorbed all this detail in the few seconds that she went unnoticed. But Nicole had not released the hold on her arm when she fell and dragged Carolyn down into the room with her. Before the maddened people in the room could grab her, she wrenched herself free, feeling the long nails rend her skin, knowing it was the least of the injuries she might sustain in this room. The reason why they had gone crazy was irrelevant now; her only concern was escape. She tried to scramble for the door on her knees, but Nicole's flailing leg kicked it shut. A quick glance from the corner of her eye revealed a woman and two men crawling over the redhead, fingers ripping at her clothes to caress the flesh beneath, Nicole moaning in ecstasy as the woman lowered her head and flicked her tongue out to tease her clit, while one of the naked men took her nipple in his mouth and the other slid his cock into her mouth for her to suck, the four people blending together into a writhing, protoplasmic mass. But the people remaining–five of them, her mind registered, three men and two women–converged on her.

OOOOOOO

Reinhardt closed the engine cover on the last boat and walked back toward Peachbloom Towers, wiping the oil from his hands on the expensive black linen slacks he wore. _Deader than yesterday's racing form, _he thought as he entered the deserted lobby. He didn't bother concealing his blade-gun now, because if he was right nobody on this island except for him cared about anything besides fucking and infecting people with whatever it was that made that slime trail from Lutz to the heating vent. If Cromwell hadn't been so goddamn stupid and Golden had put him in charge instead of that half-blood, things would have gone smoothly and he wouldn't have to deal with this clusterfuck right now.

It was eerie, the silent, empty lobby, bathed in the yellow light from the crystal chandeliers above. Made him think of _The Shining, _in fact. He almost wished some crazy with an ax would come along, so he could blow him away and things would get back to normal. Reinhardt needed to call Golden and fill him in on current events, but the gangster's desire to make the robbery look as if it had been committed by human thieves had robbed him of the phone lines. And even if he'd been able to call, help from Atlanta would not have shown up. Standard policy in Golden's organization said: if you can't handle it, fuck you. But he knew without arrogance that he could handle this.

According to the research he'd done on his own, Peachbloom Towers had a total of 753 residents, all human, not counting the people who worked in the shops and restaurants and commuted to the island. The numbers might be more in his favor because a lot of people had left the island for Thanksgiving, but he had a bad feeling that getting off this hunk of dirt might be a tougher job than he thought. What he needed was an edge. Cromwell had brought a duffel bag with equipment in it, burglar's tools they intended to abandon at the scene, but now he saw a need for them. As far as he knew, the bag remained in Lutz's apartment. But before Reinhardt went upstairs after it, he detoured to the guard post to get the two remaining revolvers off the dead guards. He didn't know whether the crazies had enough rationality to use guns, but leaving armament lying around went against his principles. He needed something to deal with the humans, because the silver bullets in his blade-gun had Cromwell's name all over them.

OOOOOOO

Carolyn closed everything out but the people approaching her. Multiple assailants in a closed space–not the best situation, but maybe she could handle it. If none of them had any training, or the discipline to use it, she might make it out of here. Then she could think about what all this meant.

With a scream she launched a kick at the knee of the man closest to her, connecting solidly and shattering his kneecap. The man hit the floor, face twisted in agony, his cry of pain harmonizing with her shriek. Another man grabbed at her, laughing and drooling, and she landed a reverse punch to his face, breaking his nose, then swept his legs out from under him with a kick. A woman tried to circle around behind her and cut her off from the door, but Carolyn jumped to her feet and crumpled her with a roundhouse kick to the midsection. Two left, but they seemed more cautious now, seeing what had happened to their buddies. The man and woman looked at each other, seeming to communicate without words, then they moved to bracket her. If she attacked one, the other could move in, no trouble. She needed something to even up the odds. Then she saw the broken coffeepot on the floor and dove for it, seizing the intact handle and spout. Jagged pieces of glass still adhered to the plastic. This put her farther from the door, but now she had a weapon. Nicole and the other three didn't seem to notice the fight happening, too caught up in the cascade of orgasms. Even the men? The scientist part of her mind tried to observe their actions, but the warrior shut it down. Later she could analyze and theorize, when she was safe.

But that lapse in attention cost her, because the woman lunged at her with a speed she hadn't expected and slammed her against the wall, her hands clawing at Carolyn's clothes, trying to expose her body, gasping with need and effort. Something moved inside her mouth–her tongue? No, couldn't be, wrong color, the movements off, and then something–some _thing_–emerged from the woman's mouth in a hemorrhage, the segments of its body sliding out onto her chin, the section that must be its head weaving, as if it were looking for something. For her.

The woman hadn't secured her hands, and Carolyn lashed out with the remains of the pot, skewering the thing only half out of the woman's mouth and driving a glass shard deep into her face. Her howl of pain echoed in the room as Carolyn jerked the improvised weapon free and charged the man, who hesitated for an instant. Leaping into the air, she drove a double kick into his chest and stomach before he fell and she landed on the ground. One of the men pleasuring Nicole took note of this and lifted his head, but she had already reached the door and jerked it open. The four tried to pull themselves together long enough to deal with this development, but she slammed the door before they even had the chance to stand.

Carolyn raced down the hallway toward the elevators, but she didn't plan to use any of them. They were death traps, places the infected could swarm someone. No, she was searching for something else. All the shops and restaurants along the corridor to the elevator were deserted, the lights on, their contents and furnishings in disarray. Jesus, Corby had done it after all. He'd infected people with some parasite that turned them into retarded sex maniacs. How the hell had this happened? More important, what could be done about it? _No, later, later, _the warrior told her. Now you need a real weapon.

Kaya was an expensive Japanese restaurant on the main floor of Peachbloom Towers that she'd noticed on her way to the elevator earlier. It had the subdued elegance of an upscale restaurant, but the ambience came from the decor, with real rice paper walls inside for the private dining rooms, and–yes! Moving swiftly to one of the walls in the main dining room, she grabbed a chair and stood on it, her fingers just brushing a sheathed sword. She just hoped it was real and not a decoration. The weight seemed right, though. With a hiss of steel Carolyn pulled the katana free of its sheath and relief washed through her. It was real. She was armed. She didn't have to rely exclusively on her body now. Shaking with adrenalin, she went back toward the front of the restaurant, but shrank back as she caught a dark figure moving in her peripheral vision. Maybe the shadows would hide her.

OOOOOOO

A woman's scream had drawn Reinhardt outside the guard post. It was the first sign of life he'd witnessed since coming back inside from the boat dock. Pain in the voice, but also a terrible, wordless need. He figured she was a crazy, but reached out with his senses to confirm it. And how–a bunch of crazies nearby. Good thing he'd heard that scream or he might have walked right into them. Tucking the blade-gun into its holster and one of the guard's revolvers into his jacket pocket, he put the other .38 in the waistband of his pants and started walking toward the room he thought was the source of the sound, trying his best to keep his footsteps silent on the marble floor. He wanted to see what was going on before he started killing people.

The ding that sounded from behind him made him spin. The steel doors slid open to reveal a woman and a little boy. Reinhardt assumed the boy was her son. But the mother's tongue was down the kid's throat and he didn't have on a shirt, his hands lost under her skirt. Crazies. Did he even have enough ammo in the two guns to handle them all? He needed to get back to Lutz's apartment; the jeweler had a small arsenal hidden in his apartment, and it looked like he was going to need all the firepower he could get. Then the woman raised her head and looked at him with the same crazy eyes as the blonde chick. The son's head turned in tandem with hers and the crazy just screamed out of his eyes. _Sometimes it's like that with parents, _he wanted to tell the boy. _Sometimes they try to eat you alive. _But he had no time as they came out of the elevator, leaving footprints in the blood that covered its floor. Something squirmed inside the woman's throat and Reinhardt knew it was the same as what had been in Lutz. He also knew there was no way in hell she or her freak kid was going to infect him. He'd kill everybody in this building before letting that happen. He went for the gun in his waistband, but before he could draw he heard sound behind him.

A woman was running toward him, her feet bare, a sword in her hand, long hair flying behind her. It was the girl he'd noticed earlier in the lobby, the one with the gorgeous legs. Was she a crazy? Seemed a shame to kill her, but as she got closer he noticed her scent. Normal. Human. So there was one other person in this place besides him who wasn't a crazy. Not that he needed anybody else to help out, but it meant that the crazies weren't as unstoppable as they seemed. If a human could stay normal...Wait. Did she think he was a crazy? He might have to kill her even if she wasn't hosting one of those slimy things. His hand closed around the gun before he realized what she was screaming at him.

"Run, mister!"

Air brushed over him as she passed, putting herself between him and the mother-son duo, her katana raised and ready. The two broke into a run and, without hesitation, the dark-haired woman swung her sword in three fast, deadly arcs. Blood sprayed across the walls, the floor, and her as the two crazies collapsed at her feet, dead. Reinhardt had the gun in his hand, leveled at her, when she turned toward him. Gore covered her clothes and arterial spray had painted a stripe across her face, right temple to the hinge of her jaw on the left, making her skin look like chalk. Or maybe that was just shock. She blinked at him and he saw her eyes were blue-green. Pretty. And then she spoke, saying the words that he had never in his life expected to hear from anyone.

"Mister, are you all right?"


	5. Explanations

**Disclaimer: **I own none of the characters and/or situations from either _Blade 2 _or _Shivers/They Came from Within _and I don't make any money from this

**Summary: **Carolyn fills Reinhardt in on what's going on and they try to come up with a means of defending themselves.

Parasitic

Chapter 5–Explanations

A blood-splattered angel. He'd been rescued–although he assured himself he hadn't been in any real danger, he appreciated her efforts–by a Pre-Raphaelite angel in a leather skirt. Reinhardt had trouble wrapping his mind around what had just happened. This woman, this tiny little thing, had just hacked two people apart with a sword in front of him. To protect him. A total stranger. He towered over her by at least a foot and had a gun to boot, but she had defended him without a second thought. And her form with the sword was decent, too. Maybe he'd find out who trained her and send her teacher a thank-you note. Assuming he lived, of course, but that was an assumption he always felt safe in making.

She watched him, her eyes losing their expression of concern and turning suspicious. "Hey, mister, I asked you if you were all right."

He sighed and lowered his gun. "Fuckin'-A, angel, except that everybody on this island except for you and me seems to have gone crazy. Got any ideas about that?"

"Yeah, I do. But one thing before we get into that. Could you hold my jacket, please?" The woman shrugged out of the oversized leather jacket she wore and handed it to him, keeping her grip on her katana. Then she tugged her blouse free of her waistband with one hand and pulled it up, her bra going along with it, until her breasts were exposed to him. Reinhardt's mouth went dry. That Irish-pale skin, the blue veins visible through its thinness, the dark pink nipples that hardened under his gaze. Damn, would he like to get those in his mouth. When he managed to tear his gaze away from them, he found her regarding him with a strange mixture of fear and resolve. "Do you want to fuck me?" she asked.

The blonde chick flashed into his mind. Fucking anybody on this island was a piss-poor idea, unless they had a complete medical examination beforehand and a clean bill of health after. Cromwell was the poster boy for fuck-now-pay-later. "I don't want to insult you, because those are very pretty, but I'd rather have an explanation about what's going on around here. And you said you had some ideas about that, so spill them."

She sighed and the tension in her body relaxed as she pulled her shirt down. "Well, I guess you're not infected, then." She might have said more, but the door to the employee break room came open and the people she'd just escaped from poured out into the corridor. Grabbing his arm, she hissed, "Run," and dragged him toward the stairwell. Reinhardt forced her to stop. Terrified, she told him, "I just escaped from them. They're all infected. We have to go!"

"How many crazies are there?"

"Eight."

He put an arm out and pushed her behind him, then lifted his revolver and began firing. Six of the crazies that had erupted out of the break room went down before his gun went dry and she managed to get his attention. "Every infected person on this floor's going to hear that, and they'll converge on us. You don't have enough bullets to deal with them and I can only handle so many, so let's get out of here."

Lutz's apartment–as good a goal as any. "I know someone who lives here with a lot of guns."

"Those would come in handy." She looked past him. Reinhardt turned and saw the redhead from the information desk emerging from the break room, her breasts braless and visible through her open blouse, her mouth dripping blood. He sensed movement in the room behind her before his new ally took his arm again, not gently. "Let's go, tough guy. Now." Giving in gracefully, he followed her through the stairwell door and they began racing up the stairs.

"What floor is your friend on?" she asked after a few minutes.

"Nineteen," he replied. "He was a diamond dealer. Kept a small arsenal at his place to deal with thieves. But he wasn't what I'd call a friend."

"What do you mean? He'll help us after we tell him what's going on, won't he?" She had started to suck wind a little, so he stopped on a landing, both to let her catch a breath and listen for pursuit. The stairwell door hadn't clanged shut again after he closed it, but that didn't mean shit. They could have blocked it open. When he reached out with his senses, he didn't feel anything very near, but the smell of crazy permeated the building now and that made it hard for him to judge the distance between them and a threat.

"Doubt if he'll do much helping, since he's dead."

"Really." It wasn't a question, and her blue-green eyes narrowed. "Natural causes?"

"Lead poisoning. He turned into a crazy. His girlfriend infected my partner. God knows where he is now." She opened her mouth to question him further, but a small skittering noise from below them made them both fall silent. The woman shot a quick glance over the railing, then looked back at him and shook her head. Nobody there now, but it was a good idea to keep moving.

"You're demonstrating remarkable composure for a situation like this," she noted. "As soon as we get somewhere with a door I can lock, you're going to have to fill me in on how you wound up here."

"Fair enough, as long as you tell me what's going on as far as the crazies go." He saw her shiver and handed back her leather jacket.

She gave him a smile and let him hold her katana as she put it on. Reinhardt decided that she was prettier than he'd originally thought. "Deal. But I have to warn you that you won't like it a bit."

"Hey, I haven't liked one fucking thing that's happened to me since I got to this piece of shit island." That wasn't exactly true, though. He'd liked looking at her in the lobby. But he pushed that thought away as he handed back her katana. Might be a good idea to keep her handy, for watching his back. And in case he got injured and needed a clean blood source.

"That makes two of us." He started to move past her to the stairs, but she put her hand on his arm. "I don't believe we've been properly introduced. My name is Carolyn Robideaux."

"Dieter Reinhardt. And we still need to keep moving. We're only on the sixth floor as it is." When she tried to step around him, he pushed her back with his arm. "No way am I going to let you take point."

"Because I'm a woman?" A tinge of irritation entered her voice.

"No. Because I still have a gun." He held up the last guard's revolver. Apparently she couldn't find fault with that reasoning and fell in behind him as they resumed their trek upstairs.

OOOOOOO

Carolyn considered Reinhardt's broad back as they kept climbing stairs. For a man who dressed like a typical rich guy, he reacted without hesitation and a hell of a lot of violence to the threat of the crazies, as he called them. Whatever he seemed to be wasn't what he was, but any explanations had to wait, so she distracted herself by looking at him. He wore an expensive tweed jacket over a white silk shirt and tailored black pants, but his build ruined the whole disguise. No pencil-pusher he, with those muscles. So why had she felt the need to protect him?

It was a question she'd asked herself numerous times since she stepped out of Kaya into the corridor and saw him standing there, looking at the woman and her son. She had known instantly from their behavior that they were infected, but he could have been as well. When she'd turned her back on him to face his potential attackers, he could have taken her down easily, infected her, killed her if he'd had a mind to. But he hadn't. He'd allowed her to kill that mother and her son, and when she'd turned to check on him he'd had a gun pointed at her. Big tough guy. Like she would have hurt him after killing to protect him. The images of the two people she'd murdered rose up bigger than life in her mind and she forced them away. _No time for that now, _her inner warrior said. _Later, when you can explain to him._ _Later you can grieve for them._

She must have let some sound of pain escape her, because he turned around to ask, "You all right, angel?"

"Fine." Her voice wasn't as strong as she wanted. "Keep leading the way, tough guy."

He smiled at that. "Good judge of character."

"Part of my charm." But it had distracted her from the memory of what she had done earlier. It was entirely different, knowing how to kill in theory and putting that knowledge into practice. But what other choice did she have? As far as she knew, the parasites couldn't be removed from their host bodies, but then why had that one parasite come out of the woman's mouth, attempting to infect her? From the evidence she'd seen, its means of transmission was most likely sexual, but she couldn't be sure that was the only way the parasite was transmitted. How could they protect themselves if they didn't know how to avoid becoming infected? There was too much she didn't know, and only one person might have the answers they needed: Dr. Corby. After they armed themselves at this diamond dealer's place, she intended to go back to the penthouse and get some more answers out of the good doctor. He might be reluctant to give her answers that could save her, but something told her this guy Reinhardt could get damn near anybody to talk. And she found it comforting that she wasn't alone anymore.

Then Carolyn remembered that he'd said his friend lived on nineteen. "I know someone who lives on nineteen. She might help us."

"Yeah? You think she has any guns?"

"Well, no, but she might know the building well enough so we can avoid the crazies and get off the island."

"Escaping's going to have to wait. I can't leave the island until I find my partner."

"Are you a cop?"

Reinhardt turned to look at her, his mouth dropping open. Then he started laughing. "What on earth would make you think a thing like that?"

She couldn't help but feel offended. "Well, you keep calling him your partner. You're not in uniform, but you have a .38 Chief's Special. That's standard police issue. It also doesn't seem to upset you to shoot people. You're pretty good at it, too. So I don't think it's such a ridiculous idea."

He sighed. "I'm not a cop. Let's leave it at that until we get somewhere safe."

That brought up all sorts of questions. If he wasn't a cop, then judging from his reaction she'd bet on him being a criminal. And if that were true, she'd bet money that he'd get rid of her at the first opportunity, since she'd only slow him down. So she couldn't trust him and needed to watch out not only for the crazies but for him. Wonderful.

They kept climbing stairs. The smell of blood, the blood of the people she'd killed, gagged her. She lifted her arm and wiped the arterial spray from her face with the sleeve of her ruined leather jacket. When they got to nineteen she intended to take a shower and get into some more sensible clothes before she tried to find Mrs. Porteous. Something told her the older woman wouldn't react well to finding Carolyn on her doorstep, covered in gore. The blood hadn't infected her on contact with her skin, so apparently the parasite didn't survive in the air unless it was full-grown. It gave her hope, unlike the tough guy. At least for now he was in front of her.

OOOOOOO

Reinhardt made Carolyn stay in the hallway while he checked Lutz's apartment for intruders. Since the lock on the door was broken, he didn't have much faith in it as a refuge from the crazies, but this was a big building. It would take them a while to search. And he'd bet that before the crazies made it up here, both he and the woman would be armed well enough to make them sorry. "The place is clean," he told her after he motioned her inside.

She walked into the living room eyes instantly riveted on the corpse of the jeweler and that of the blonde girl lying not too far away. "You said they were infected?"

"Yeah. After I shot him, something must have crawled out of his mouth. See the trail? But I wasn't here, so I can't tell you what it looked like. Then she infected Cromwell. My partner," he added when she gave him a blank look. "She tried to attack me after that. Maybe she wanted to infect me, but I killed her before she could. Then he tried to infect me with that goddamn parasite, but I fought him off and he ran. I didn't catch him and I don't have any idea where he is, but I can't leave the island without him. If he gets caught he'll rat me out, and my boss will kill me if that happens. So I either have to kill him or take him back to New York–"

"You can't do that," she interrupted. "If this parasite gets off Peachbloom Island, we'll have a pandemic that will make Ebola look like a slight nosebleed. This outbreak has to be confined to the island somehow. If they make it to the boats..."

"They won't. After Cromwell lost his mind, I disabled every boat on the island except for the one I used to get here. I have the keys, and he can't hotwire it. So for now they're trapped."

"Just like we are." Carolyn shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, heedless of the blood on her jacket. "I saw one of those downstairs while I was being attacked. It hadn't fully emerged from the woman's mouth, but it was big. Maybe the length of my forearm. The one I saw was purplish and had a segmented body. It's clearly parasitic, but I'm not sure how it spreads."

"I'd guess fucking."

"That would be my best guess too, but that may not be the only way. Probably not bloodborne, due to the fact that I wasn't infected when contaminated blood touched my skin. It's possible that blood-to-blood contact might transmit the parasite, but the organisms were originally implanted by means of surgery. We'd have to question Dr. Corby about it, assuming he knows."

"Who's Dr. Corby?"

"The cause of it all. He implanted the original parasite in a young woman and later killed her trying to remove it. She's our Patient Zero, and from the looks of things, she got around like a record. I'm not sure if that was part of his plan, but he did say he wanted to duplicate an experiment one of his mentors conducted in Montreal fifteen years ago. Shit, I wish I knew more about what happened there. I'd have some idea what to do." Slowly she removed the jacket and tossed it over a chair, laying her katana on top of it before approaching Lutz's dead body. Kneeling beside him, careful to avoid the slime trail, she took his head in both hands and turned it from side to side. Then she moved over to examine the dead blonde. "Exited through the mouth in both cases. Did you say the man was already dead?"

"Yeah. I shot him."

Carolyn looked up from the dead man. "Did you know he was infected?"

Reinhardt knew he'd implied that earlier, but she didn't believe it. Well, he'd have to be honest with her to some extent. "I knew something was wrong with him, but that wasn't why I shot him. My partner and I were sent here to rob him of a shipment of diamonds. Killing him was part of the job." It didn't matter what she thought. If she wanted to stay alive, she had to stay with him. He had guns. Simple as that. She had to depend on him. And he needed to hang onto his source of clean blood.

Biting her lips, she nodded. "Okay. So we can conclude that the parasite is capable of living outside the body for a limited period of time and most likely only uses the host body to breed."

He felt somewhat surprised that she let his statement go. "So how does that help us?"

"I'm not sure it does, but the more we know the better. Do you know the difference between a symbiotic and a parasitic relationship?"

"Refresh my memory." Reinhardt doubted any of this science stuff would do them any good, but it seemed to calm her to talk about it. The last thing he needed was some panicky woman on his hands.

"A symbiotic relationship is one where both parties in the relationship give and take. They get benefits out of it. An example of this would be eyelash mites. Those are microscopic creatures that live in our eyelashes and eat the dirt and debris there. This keeps our eyes healthy, and they get food out of it. A parasitic relationship, on the other hand, is one where one party gives and the other takes. The party that gives receives no benefit and may even die if the relationship goes on long enough. An example of this would be a leech."

"Or a vampire."

She looked up at him, surprised, then a bright smile spread across her face. For a second he felt like her star pupil. "That's a good example too. A vampire drains the donor of blood, eventually causing death, and gets sustenance but doesn't give anything. A parasite."

He wondered what she'd do if she knew what he was. But he wasn't the parasite she needed to worry about for now. "You said the guy who invented these things is here."

"Dr. Corby, yes. He's upstairs in his penthouse. I had to restrain him after he attacked me. I'd just found the body of that girl he killed and he told me most of what I just told you. He would know more, though. I need to get my hands on his lab journals, his research notes, and since he conducted the experiment here because he needed secrecy, they're probably upstairs in his lab. I was also hoping that you could question him for me."

"Why did he want to do something like this?"

Carolyn leaned over Lutz's mouth and peered inside. Reinhardt wanted to tell her to get back, but if there had been any more of those things inside him, they were either dead or they'd slithered away by now. "You want the condensed version?"

"Please."

"He thought people spent too much time thinking and not enough time fucking. So he decided to fix that."

Hearing her say "fucking" was kind of a shock, since she seemed like such a lady. It was also kind of a turn-on, but that wasn't a line of thought he wanted to explore until he got off this disease-ridden piece of shit. "So what do we do now, angel?"

"What we came up here for. You find this guy's weapons, and I'm going to go wash up."

"His girlfriend was about your size, I think. Might be some clothes in the bedroom that would fit you. If you want to change."

Looking down at her bloodstained clothes, she let out a harsh laugh. "I think that's an excellent idea."

"I'll keep an eye out for the crazies. Here." He handed Carolyn the revolver he had used to kill Lutz. "It only has two bullets left. Keep it with you in the bathroom, just in case."

She reached for the gun and their fingers touched briefly as the cold metal changed hands. "Where did the other bullets go? Other than the one in that guy's chest and the one in her head."

"Long story, but nobody else got dead." _More than he already was, anyway, _he amended silently. "Just go take your shower. I feel like paying a visit to Dr. Corby."

OOOOOOO

Carolyn took Reinhardt's advice and searched the bedroom closets for some more suitable clothing. The dead girl had been the same size, and she scavenged a pair of jeans and a loose, long-sleeved black shirt from her wardrobe. She drew the line at underwear, though. Gross as it might be, she'd keep her own panties and bra on. Unfortunately, Lutz's girlfriend had much smaller, wider feet than Carolyn, so she would have to continue going barefoot.

Draping the fresh clothes over her arm, she went into the connected bathroom and turned on the shower. The water blasted out of the showerhead, hot and cleansing. She tried to ignore the shaking of her body, putting it down to delayed reaction. But maybe she should ask Reinhardt. He'd killed people before. Was it normal to want to cry and vomit at the same time? Would it be like this every time, because she knew there would be more opportunity to kill on Peachbloom, opportunities she wouldn't be able to refuse? A little brandy might help, but she didn't feel comfortable drinking anything on this island until the parasite's means of transmission was established. _Better tell him not to eat or drink anything_ _until we're off the island. _"Hey, Reinhardt?"

"You okay?" he called back immediately.

"Yeah. Just don't eat or drink anything on the island. The parasite might be able to live inside whiskey or water or food."

He laughed. "I'll try to restrain myself."

With that taken care of, Carolyn stripped off her bloody clothes. The leather skirt had been her favorite, the red blouse too, and now they were ruined. Everything had been ruined. Corby ruined anything he touched. Blinking her eyes hard to hold the tears back, she stuffed her clothes into the garbage can under the sink and stepped into the shower, closing the glass door with a click. The revolver rested atop the pile of new clothes on the sink, several steps away, but she didn't give it a thought. Any commotion from the other room would be warning enough for her to reach the gun, and she trusted Reinhardt to kill anyone who decided to come after them. Did she actually feel safe with a self-confessed killer? Hard to believe, but she did. At least while he still thought he needed her for whatever reason.

The water ran over her face, washing the blood away, plastering her hair to her body. When she picked up the bar of floral-scented soap and began lathering a washcloth, blood turned the soap and cloth red. Blood on her hands, now and always. The tears broke through her resistance and she began sobbing as quietly as she could, so as not to worry Reinhardt, crying for the mother and son she'd been forced to kill and for all the people she would have to kill before this nightmare ended. Clutching the soap and washcloth, she braced herself against the shower wall with her other hand and let the pain flow through her.

Her tears blinded her, the salt in them stinging her eyes until she closed them. So she didn't see the movement in the drain of the shower, or the segmented body hauling itself up, its head moving up, its blind eyes seeming to search for the source of the intoxicating warmth nearby as it inched closer to its prey.


	6. Proof

**Disclaimer: **I don't own any of the characters from _Blade 2 _or _Shivers/They Came from Within. _I don't have any money anyway, so don't sue me.

**Summary: **Carolyn comes up with a plan for dealing with the parasites and she and Reinhardt go to question Corby.

Parasitic

Chapter 6–Proof

Reinhardt tried to ignore the unease he felt as he searched Lutz's apartment for his weapons cache. He heard the water running in the bathroom and his mind returned to her, Carolyn. She was a rare piece of work. He still couldn't get over her speed and resolve in attacking the mother and son who'd threatened him. No one had ever tried to protect him before except his mother, and his father had punished her so brutally whenever she tried that Reinhardt had begged her to stop intervening. Of course she hadn't, but when he got old enough he'd fought Stefan for hurting Liesl. The old man never had the nerve to kill him, or maybe he just didn't want to bother having to sire another heir. High-born females didn't get pregnant easily. But Stefan still hurt him to teach him his place in the family pecking order. No matter what dear old dad inflicted on him, though, he always stepped in when his mother was attacked. Until that night before Reinhardt left for Japanwhen he had managed to beat Stefan, leave him prostrate on the castle's stone floor with blood dripping down his face. "Raise a hand to her again and I kill you, old man. And don't think that because I'm gone I won't know. Some people in this place are loyal to me." It was bullshit, of course. All of Stefan's vassals were terrified of him, and if that didn't breed loyalty, it sure bred the desire to avoid being killed. Unless Reinhardt showed definite signs of winning a power grab, no one would risk anything for him. Except Liesl, and now his angel.

The sound quality from the bathroom changed, and his head came up. Was she all right? Then he identified the almost imperceptible sound: she was crying and wanting to keep quiet. Hm. Had she ever killed anyone before? If she had, he suspected her victims hadn't been a woman and a preteen boy. So she might just have the shakes over it. Maybe a drink would calm–then he remembered what she'd said about eating and drinking. No Dutch courage for her, then. Reinhardt hoped she could handle what she'd probably have to do before she got off this island. There was only so much he could do to protect her, and when he needed that parasite-free blood running in her veins, he'd have to drain her. Under ordinary circumstances he wouldn't have done that, since she was exactly his physical type and he didn't like the idea of killing a warm little female, but these circumstances were unusual, to say the least. He tried to dismiss the guilt that rose in him at his thoughts. Other than her blood, he had no vested interest in her. But it would have been nice to know what her legs felt like wrapped around him.

Then he located the false wall at the back of Lutz's closet and forgot his concerns. "You should have dealt arms instead of jewels, dead guy," he said to the corpse as he began taking inventory of the arsenal.

OOOOOOO

Lost in her anguish, Carolyn remained only dimly aware of the water running over her skin and swirling around her feet. She remembered their faces, the nameless woman and boy, and wondered if that was good or bad. _Ask Reinhardt, _her mind suggested again. _He's killed enough people to know. _But she knew she'd never do that. She didn't want to look weak in front of him, and she figured he'd never done any crying over people he'd killed.

The water around her feet seemed much hotter now. In fact, a stream of water over the top of her left foot was actually burning her. She lifted her foot and shook it, but the burning remained. When she rubbed the tears out of her eyes to look down, her breath left her lungs in a gasp of horror as she registered the wormlike creature slithering over her foot and beginning to slide up her calf, moving faster than she thought possible. A scream ripped itself out of her throat and she fell hard against the shower door, blocking the creature's ascent with her hands. _Any orifice, it can gain entry through any bodily orifice. _The thought rang in her brain as she knocked the shower door open and fell out onto the tile floor. The skin of her palms began stinging as the parasite tried to burrow past them. Acid. It must secrete acid.

Reinhardt burst into the bathroom, gun in hand. For a moment he froze, staring at her as she rolled around naked on the floor. But then he must have spotted the dark, slimy creature trying to crawl up her leg. Somewhere, God knew where, Carolyn found enough sanity to scream, "Don't kill it! We need it."

"Jesus." Although she couldn't see his eyes behind those sunglasses, she imagined he rolled them in disgust before reaching down for the parasite.

"Don't touch it. It secretes acid. I'm already burned. I'll peel it off while you get the garbage can and trap it under there." The pain of contact with the creature forced new tears from her eyes.

He set the gun down and picked up the metal can, dumping her bloody clothes on the floor. "Whenever you're ready."

Biting her lips against the pain, she worked the back of her hand under the parasite's body and pulled it free of her skin. The angry red burn it left behind stretched the length of her calf. With a flick of her hand she tossed it toward Reinhardt, who caught it in the can and set it on the floor with the open end down, so the creature couldn't escape. Before moving to check on her, he found a scale in the bathroom closet and placed it on top of the can.

Carolyn curled into a ball, injured hands covering her injured leg. With the parasite separated from her body, the pain began fading, but enough remained to keep her crying. But she wasn't infected–thank God that thing had not crawled up inside her and turned her into a crazy. She clung to the thought, which made her pain almost bearable. She was still herself.

OOOOOOO

Reinhardt looked down at her and lifted her to her feet. "We need to clean those wounds," he told her as he moved her toward the sink.

"Wait. Wait," she gasped. Just before he realized what was about to happen, she knelt, flipped the toilet lid up, and began vomiting. For a second he stood there, feeling helpless and out of place, then he gathered her hair back from her face in a loose ponytail and waited for her to finish. Shaking from the sudden sickness, Carolyn seemed to notice him there between heaves. "Don't look at me. I'm puking," she told him, then started throwing up again.

"It'll be okay," said Reinhardt. "You're all right." He knew from her scent that the parasite hadn't infected her. Knowing that was a relief, but he refused to examine that feeling. Instead, he held her hair until the nausea passed, then moistened a washcloth under the tap and wiped her mouth. "Feel better now?"

"Yeah." Her voice was hoarse, and tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.

"We still need to get those burns cleaned." He flushed the toilet, then closed the lid and sat her down on top of it. She obeyed him numbly, her eyes straying back to the garbage can over and over. He wondered how long it would take her to realize she was still naked. Earlier, when she'd revealed her breasts to him in the lobby, he'd definitely felt some heat at the sight despite the circumstances, but now he just felt worried. The scent of her pain and fear filled his nose. Why didn't she wipe away her tears? "You okay?"

"Fine, fine," she whispered, waving a hand in the air. He didn't believe that for a second, but he let it go in favor of washing the burns on her foot and leg, which seemed worse than the ones on her hands. The only burn medication he found in the jeweler's medicine cabinet was Neosporin, which he guessed was better than nothing. Her skin still felt cool from the water as he stroked the ointment gently over the burn. Soft, she was so damn soft under his fingers. For a second he indulged himself, pictured himself pressing his lips against the inside of her knee, the first of a chain of kisses that would end with her hands pressed firmly against his head, holding him prisoner between her thighs, but then he crushed the fantasy and used gauze and adhesive tape from the medicine cabinet to bandage her leg and foot. Reinhardt started to apply more ointment to her hands, but she pulled them away. "That junk's slippery. I won't be able to hold a weapon securely with that on my hands. No."

"You need something on those burns."

"It can wait until we're off this island. They're not life-threatening." Carolyn flexed her hands, wincing at the pull on the reddened skin.

With a sigh, Reinhardt stood up and took a man's terrycloth robe off the hook on the back of the door, holding it out in front of him before he said, "Angel, did you notice that you're naked?"

A blank look crossed her face before she glanced down at herself and pure surprise replaced it. Grabbing for the robe he held out, she turned her back to put it on, but he kept his eyes on her. When she turned to face him, a pink blush stained her skin from her hairline to the part of her upper chest the robe failed to cover. Once again he wondered what her skin tasted like. Right now he guessed soap and water. He found the thought...interesting. "Are you finished with your shower?"

Carolyn shuddered. "Yes."

"Then you need to put some clothes on and we'll go question your crazy doctor. Then we go looking for Cromwell. Like I said, I'm not leaving here until that's dealt with."

"We need to talk to Corby first. That way we'll know how much of a threat your partner is."

He started to leave, to give her some privacy to get dressed, but her voice stopped him. "Reinhardt, could you go in the kitchen and find a large glass jar? Something with a metal lid. And poke a few air holes in the lid with a screwdriver or something."

"What for?" He could guess, but he was at a loss as to why she'd want to take one of those things anywhere with her.

"We need some way of transporting the parasite and I'm not carrying the damn thing in my hands, that's for sure. There's a ferry arriving at this island at seven-fifteen tomorrow morning, and if the crazies get on that boat, it's all over. This thing's going to spread like the plague. A geometric rate of progression. When we get off Peachbloom, I'm going straight to the Center for Disease Control so they can institute a quarantine until the parasites and the crazies are under control. The CDC won't believe a wild story like this until they see some proof, though, which is why I need the jar for our little friend. I also need some blood samples from those bodies and some of that slime, but I'll do that myself later."

"Want me to haul a corpse out to the boat with us, too?" He didn't know whether to laugh or go crazy. It was the most surreal situation he'd ever been in.

She shook her head. "There'll be more than enough of those right here before all this is over. The jar, please?" Turning her back on him, she picked up her panties–light blue lace bikinis, he noticed–and started to shimmy into them under the robe.

"Your wish is my command," he muttered as he left the bathroom. Reinhardt got an unexpected and unpleasant shock when he looked at the clock in the kitchen. It was eleven-thirty already, and the trip back to the mainland would take at least forty-five minutes, even in the Cigarette boat. Sunrise tomorrow happened at 6:27 a.m., so if he wanted to reach a safe place in Atlanta before dawn, he was running out of time. Damn Cromwell for the stupid pussy hound he was, and damn him for wasting his time with this pretty little female, even if he did need her blood. He'd best remember what really mattered now, and what didn't.

OOOOOOO

Carolyn dressed quickly in the dead woman's clothes, then moved into the living room and looked around for Reinhardt. Unbelievably, he'd done what she asked and found a big pickle jar which he was rinsing out as she walked into the kitchen. His back was to her, but she knew he'd been aware of her ever since she'd left the bathroom. That knowledge made her skin tingle. She scolded herself for it. _You keep your mind on the big picture here, girlfriend. The only important thing now is to keep that ferry from reaching Peachbloom Island, or if that doesn't work, keep it from getting back to the mainland. If it does, well, that's it for the human race. Corby will have his Eden of fucking then. I have to see that it doesn't happen._ Delusions of grandeur, she knew. Little Carolyn Robideaux, savior of humanity. But right about now, with the crazies on the rise, she and the tough guy looked like the only game in town.

"Need a pair of metal tongs," she told him. "Did you see anything that might do?"

"Just a pair of salad tongs, and they're plastic." With quick, sharp movements he stabbed the screwdriver into the lid, leaving perfect round holes.

"They might last long enough to get it inside the jar. It seemed smaller than the one that came out of that woman's mouth, so it might fit if it curls up on itself." Her hands throbbed with pain at the memory of touching it. Could she still hold the katana, use it well enough to stay alive? She didn't doubt her psychological ability to kill anymore, just the physical.

"I'll get it in the jar. You go talk to your friend, warn her about these things. And take this with you." Reinhardt set the jar on the kitchen counter and picked up what she recognized from the movies as an Uzi. "Seven and a half pounds, light enough for you to handle. Pretty simple to operate, too. You ever fired a gun before?"

"No."

"It still won't be much of a problem. I have it set to full automatic fire, which means it'll fire until you take your finger off the trigger. I'm giving it to you that way because if you get rushed, I don't want you having to pull the trigger for each crazy. Just sweep it side to side and they'll fall down. It does have a recoil, so hang on to it when you're shooting."

"Some men just know what to give a girl for a present." It was a weak joke, but he smiled. "That's a nice smile, Reinhardt. I wish I could see more of it."

"I'll take you to a comedy club once we get off this island. Go talk to your friend and I'll get our pet into the jar."

Carolyn sank her teeth into her lip, worried. "That thing moves fast. Will you be careful?"

"As a porcupine fucking. Now hurry up and get back. We've got to get some answers and I have to find Cromwell." He picked up the jar and headed for the bathroom.

He was right; they did have to get a move on, and pretty soon. As she hurried down the corridor toward Mrs. Porteous's apartment, she wondered how much of the story to tell her. Parasites that turn you into a retarded sex maniac, a doctor turned killer, gangs of crazies trying to infect you–that was the stuff of horror movies, not everyday life. But she had to make sure the older woman stayed inside her apartment and didn't get infected. But how to do that? She hadn't come to any definite answers by the time she knocked on the door of 1911.

Mrs. Porteous opened it at once. "Carolyn. Are you all right?" Her eyes widened at the sight of the automatic weapon she was holding at her side.

"No, not at all. Something really bad's happening, something a lot worse than Dr. Corby deciding to get physical with me."

Moving aside, the older woman gestured her inside, never taking her eyes off the Uzi. "Do you need to talk about this?"

"I don't really have time to give you anything but the barest details." She took a deep breath. "Earlier tonight I found out that Dr. Corby had been doing illegal medical experimentation on some of the tenants here. He's implanted a parasite in them that secretes a substance which turns them into psychotics." She decided not to tell Mrs. Porteous about the sexual aspect of the psychosis. "They become violent in the extreme, and the parasite can pass from person to person through direct contact. Dr. Corby had killed a woman in his lab when I got there and tried to attack me. He's up there now, restrained. I'd call the police or the Coast Guard, but the phone lines are down."

"All right." The other woman put a hand to her throat and glanced up and down the corridor. "I don't know anything about parasites or diseases, but I'll suspend judgment on all that for now. How are you going to deal with it?"

Not we, not how can I help. Just what are you going to do about it. Carolyn wasn't really surprised, but she was sure Reinhardt would be happy she wasn't going to drag a fifty-year-old woman along to slow them down. "I ran into someone who'd had a narrow escape from the infected. He has a boat, and we're going to the CDC in Atlanta as soon as we question Dr. Corby. Any help we can get in stopping these creatures we need. What I need you to do is lock the door and stay inside your apartment. Don't answer the door for anybody. You can't always tell immediately who's infected." The specter of Nicole rose up in her mind. "By tonight this whole island will be crawling with doctors. I'm hoping they can get things under control."

Mrs. Porteous nodded. "I can do that." Carolyn wasn't convinced that she believed the story, but there was no time for convincing. The woman's next words told her she'd failed. "Just be careful. If even half of what you said turns out to be true, you're in serious danger trying to escape and more if you try to stay. Where did you get that gun, by the way?"

"Staying's not an option, Mrs. Porteous. I have to go. My friend's waiting for me. The friend who gave me the gun. Some of your neighbors were very dangerous people." _And still are, _she thought. She turned and took a few steps down the hall, then turned back. "Just promise me you'll keep the door locked."

"I promise."

Carolyn didn't believe her, but time was slipping through her fingers and she had to get back to Reinhardt, make sure he was safe. So she simply nodded and returned to the jeweler's apartment, casting one last glance at the now-closed door of Mrs. Porteous's home.

Inside, Sara Porteous turned around as a man walked out of the bathroom, drying his face on a towel. He was a few years older than she was, with something of a hangdog face and a thick head of gray hair. "Who was that?" he asked.

"A girl I met earlier today in the elevator. One of Dr. Corby's students. She had a wild story about him, but I think there may actually be something wrong up there."

He made a dismissive gesture. "Whatever it is, it'll straighten itself out by morning." He draped the towel over his shoulder, and she noticed the red stains on it.

"Charlie, what's wrong?" She stared at her husband, worry rising up in her.

"Nothing. Just a little nosebleed." He smiled and held out his arms.

Without an instant of hesitation or a second thought, Sara went to him and lifted her face for his kiss.


End file.
